Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO US
I spent the entire night staring at old family photographs.
Christmas mornings.
Birthday cakes.
School concerts.
My mother smiling behind the camera.
My father holding Owen at the beach.
I had believed every photograph represented the truth.
Now Owen was telling me Margaret Hayes wasn't our biological mother.
I wanted to be angry.
Instead, I felt lost.
The following morning, Detective Bennett arranged a secure meeting with Owen and his legal advocate.
Roman offered transportation.
I accepted.
Not because I trusted the Moretti family.
But because I wanted my brother back.
When Owen entered the meeting room, I forgot every question I'd prepared.
He was taller.
Broad-shouldered.
His curls were shorter.
But his smile was the same.
I ran to him.
He caught me in his arms.
For seven years, I'd imagined this moment.
Now it was real.
I held him so tightly he laughed.
You're crushing me, he signed.
I laughed through tears.
Good.
We sat together for hours.
Owen explained that he'd been moved between facilities after his supposed death.
Margaret and Beatrice had helped arrange a protected placement when they discovered threats against him.
But the records were manipulated.
Contacts were restricted.
And he had grown up believing I was being kept safe somewhere else.
I covered my mouth.
"They told me you were dead."
He nodded sadly.
They told me you didn't remember me.
I began crying again.
Then Owen handed me a folder.
Inside were documents about our early childhood.
Our adoption.
Our guardianship.
And a woman named Cassandra Voss.
My stomach tightened.
"Who's she?"
Owen's expression changed.
Our biological mother.
I stared at her photograph.
Beautiful.
Dark hair.
Sharp green eyes.
She looked nothing like Margaret.
But there was something familiar in her expression.
Something cold.
Roman, sitting quietly near the door, suddenly stood.
"Cassandra Voss?"
I looked toward him.
"You know her?"
His face became pale.
"She worked for my father."
My stomach tightened.
"Doing what?"
He hesitated.
"Managing private accounts and confidential agreements."
Detective Bennett opened another document.
Cassandra's signature appeared beside several suspicious adoption transfers.
Including Elena Moretti's.
Roman stared at the page.
"Cassandra helped take my sister?"
The detective nodded.
"We're investigating her role."
Then Owen handed me another photograph.
It showed Cassandra standing beside two small children.
Me.
And Owen.
But behind us stood a man.
A man wearing a dark suit.
Roman recognized him immediately.
His father.
Vittorio Moretti.
And beneath the photograph was a handwritten sentence.
"Children retained as collateral."
I looked up.
"Collateral for what?"
Owen's hands trembled.
Then he signed:
Our real father stole something from Vittorio Moretti.
May you like
And when Detective Bennett opened the next file, we discovered exactly what it was.
A ledger containing proof of a criminal operation worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
